Displaying items by tag: NHS

London Prayer has launched a new initiative called 'Pray for NHS'. People wanting to pray for the NHS are invited to text 07857051229. They will then be invited to join a group. The group sends out a daily prayer update with targeted points based on information received from London medical staff and other sources. NHS staff will also use the number to submit urgent prayer requests. The founder of London Prayer said ‘I'm so thankful for the work that the NHS is doing, we want to see them supernaturally enabled, strengthened and equipped. There has to be a partnership between the Church and people of prayer to stand behind frontline workers – putting our hands prayerfully upon their backs to ensure the line that they are holding in terms of treatment is held.’ This London initiative will go further, as people in Southampton, Birmingham and Manchester have enquired about organising the same initiative in their areas.

Billionaire Hans Rausing is donating £16.5 million towards supporting NHS staff and volunteers. £5 million will pay for packs of food and necessities to be distributed to the isolated vulnerable and the cost of travel, parking, and accommodation for volunteers. The chief executive of NHS Charities Together, said that the £5 million grant is the single biggest donation from a family or individual in their appeal. The current donation follows a £2.5 million grant by Mr Rausing last week which he pledged for bodies including the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Over the next six months a further £9 million will be donated. Meanwhile we can pray for NHS Charities Together as they provide immediate support to the well-being of the NHS staff, who are at the forefront of this national emergency.

It has taken just one week to build Britain’s first coronavirus field hospital, in London’s Dockland. It will treat up to 4,000 previously fit and healthy people struck down by coronavirus. London patients in need of intensive care but with the best chance of survival will be taken to the Nightingale hospital, which has been constructed inside the ExCel arena. For a time-lapse viewing of the conversion progress, click the ‘More’ button. Please pray for God to fill the building with His peace. May every patient referred there know His comfort, as the divine physician and healer of the sick watches over every bed. Pray for every nurse, doctor, paramedic and auxiliary to have the protection and the stamina that comes from heaven, and ask God to give wisdom and discernment to every doctor as they make life and death decisions.

Hospitals in London are facing a ‘tsunami’ of coronavirus cases and are beginning to run out of intensive care beds. Chris Hopson, of NHS Providers, said that while critical care capacity had been expanded, hospitals in the capital had seen an ‘explosion’ in demand. A third of the UK cases have been diagnosed in the city. Staff absence rates due to infection are at 30% to 50%, as hospitals desperately struggle with wave after wave of seriously ill patients. Mr Hopson said an extra 4,000 beds soon to be available at London’s ExCel centre will be used up very quickly in the peak, which is two or three weeks away. From April all routine operations will be cancelled for three months, and as many patients as possible will be discharged from hospital. These two measures could free up 30,000 of the 100,000 hospital beds in England alone.

NHS field hospital sites in Scotland will be identified ahead of a predicted rapid rise in coronavirus cases. Chief medical officer Dr Catherine Calderwood said, ‘We have had quite detailed discussions very recently and I know that there are sites being considered.’ Referring to comments by the vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine that the dramatic explosion in coronavirus case numbers in London could be replicated in Scotland, she said, ‘Unfortunately, he is absolutely right. We have people with mild illness, which we know 80% of people will experience - but up to 20% of people will have a much more significant illness.’

We must continue to look to God and pray that people would not become unduly fearful. Pray that the coronavirus will not have any negative effects on the preparations for, and progress of, many Christian and secular Easter celebrations across the country. When times are at their worst, Christians should be at their best. We saw glimpses of this in China. Christians facing state-sponsored persecution are out in the streets giving out masks and sharing the love of Christ with their non-believing neighbours. That behaviour comes from knowing that this world belongs to God, and that He is able to wipe away every tear from our eyes. The government is advising hospitals to carry video-based patient consultations, and is moving towards the ‘delay - second stage’ to slow the spread of the virus. Pray that their precautions are successful, and that no further action ‘stages’ will be needed. 

A 23-year-old woman taking legal action against an NHS gender clinic says she should have been challenged more by medical staff over her decision to transition to a male as a 16-year-old teenager. At the hearing, lawyers will argue that children cannot give informed consent to treatment delaying puberty or helping them to transition. The clinic runs the UK's only gender-identity development service. Pray for the two claimants, Keira Bell and Mum A - the mother of a 15-year-old girl with autism who is awaiting treatment at the clinic. Pray for stricter control of the puberty blockers that pause the development of breasts, periods, facial hair and voice-breaking. They are meant to give children more time to weigh up their options before going through the physical changes of puberty. Their impact on brain development and psychological health is not fully known.

Ministers and health officials are working to contain any UK coronavirus outbreaks. Public Health England began ‘Early Warning’ (See) coronavirus tests on patients with coughs, fevers or shortness of breath at 100 GP surgeries and 8 hospitals. The tests are employed (regardless of patients not having travelled to infected areas) to give early warnings of a more widespread infection developing. One employee of Chevron Oil was tested for the virus and 300 London staff were advised to work from home, Crossrail and media firm OMD staff are also working from home as a precaution. May calmness replace any anxiety in communities as pre-emptive moves are made to contain infection. Several schools have closed after pupils returned from half-term skiing trips in Italy. Pray for a peaceful atmosphere to cover homes of families who are self-isolating. May all awaiting test results experience calmness. Pray also for waves of common sense to flow through the nation as the media give daily virus updates. See also A pastor calls for calm

Last year we prayed for Christian doctor Richard Scott to be vindicated after a concerted and targeted attack against him by a secularist campaign group was thrown out by the General Medical Council (GMC). In June the National Secular Society registered ‘concern’ with the GMC that the GP was ‘continuing to pray and promote Christianity during consultations in an attempt to convert patients’. However, the GMC has ruled that there was no evidence and that he had done nothing wrong.

Susan Evans, a former psychiatric nurse, has launched a case in the High Court claiming that many children receiving gender reassignment treatment have been misdiagnosed; they are actually autistic, homosexual, or suffering from some form of diagnosable but non-related mental illness, including trauma resulting from sexual abuse. She is calling for an end to experimental and invasive medical treatment, with long-term and currently unknown consequences, arguing that children cannot possibly give informed consent to such life-changing and potentially hazardous treatments, and must be protected from exploitation and abuse. Meanwhile transgender children’s charities have criticised the case, saying that children should not be denied the right to make decisions about their own bodies, simply because they are trans. Mrs Evans argues, ‘Providing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to under 18s is illegal because children cannot give valid consent to the treatment’.